What We Can All Learn From The Slow Demise Of Flickr And Last.fm

Picture the scene: a two-person team of entrepreneurs, made up of a business head and a developer, had pivoted their original business into the hottest photo sharing platform in the world. With growth of over 400% in its first twelve months it was snapped up by one of the giants of the web for a mouthwatering price, despite never having turned a dime in profit.

Or how about this: created by a team of Northern Europeans, but based out of London, it was the coolest social music product on the scene. With a free streaming product, and social built into its roots, it was set to take on the music labels.

So, did you see what I did there? Whilst I could have been talking about Instagram and Spotify (both currently valued at, or, in Instagram’s case, sold for, around $1bn), I was, in fact, talking about flickr and last.fm.

Now, I may not read every single tech-blog out there, but I do tend to keep up with many of them, and this story hadn’t even crossed my radar. Yet, when the same thing happened to LinkedIn, it made the mainstream press.

And today, as I’m writing this, the entire last.fm site is down. If the same thing happened to Facebook, or Twitter, you could probably be forgiven for thinking that the world had ended.

The slow decline of last.fm, from being the coolest kid on the block, via a purchase by CBS, to a place most people don’t even notice when it disappears, alongside the much reported travails at flickr (note: the article linked to includes some rather adult language), highlight that the ever-shifting waters of the internet can be just as treacherous for natives as for the types of companies we’re used to seeing as its victims, such as newspapers and record labels.

So, what can we learn from these sites’ shifts from darlings of the Web 2.0 crowd to social media also-rans?

Because whilst multi-screening means that we can now tweet at the same time as watching TV, or update Facebook whilst having lunch, there are still only 24 hours in the day and, as we move towards the “web of want,” those services we use tend to ask more of us. This will, I think, eventually lead to polarisation around certain services as a mixture of interaction and ennui locks other players out of existing sectors.

Secondly, you need to stay ahead of the curve, but not too far ahead, mind. Flickr lost out because it took its eye off the ball and lost out in mobile at the same time as Yahoo! took its eyes off of Flickr and failed to realise what it had (at exactly the same time that Facebook was building its entire platform on photos).

Last.fm’s demise was probably down to something similar — a missed opportunity in mobile, possibly caused or exacerbated by the incomprehension of a less-flexible parent company. Having said that, whilst a recent article provides a nice retort to the common-held that SecondLife was a failure, it also highlights the fact that being too early to the game can be just as limiting to growth as coming too late.

Traffic Trends at Flickr.com

Of course, what’s really frustrating is that in both these instances, even ignoring the obvious balls that were dropped, there were so many other opportunities that weren’t properly exploited.

All this despite the fact that, considering that it’s owned by a record label, it could have done much more interesting things around discovery and true integration into CBS’ other products.

And in the same way, Yahoo! really has no excuses for not having cracked social search years ago, considering that, in flickr and delicious, it had two of the biggest sets of user-generated tags on the planet.

Finally, flickr, last.fm & aQuantive (the company Microsoft has just said isn’t worth any of the $6bn it paid for it) all go to show that an exit, whether through sale or IPO, really doesn’t mean you’ve arrived.

Companies like SAS and, indeed, SecondLife, show that there’s more to business than a quick buck. Hopefully the likes of Facebook, Instagram and Spotify won’t find out the same thing.

So, in conclusion, whether you’re a marketer, developer or a brand owner, it’s important that you concentrate on the product, not the exit. Think about whether your product would be better served with a business model that doesn’t rely on advertising.

Don’t sit back and believe the hype about the latest app or platform — get out there and test it, but only when the time is right.

You don’t want to be the first one to join, but you sure as hell don’t want to be the last, unless all you’re looking to do is turn out the lights.

Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Ciarán Norris is the Chief Digital Officer for Mindshare Australia, where he is responsible for the overall digital output of the agency, including ensuring that search, social, mobile and video are integrated into the broader marketing mix.
Ciaran spent 7 years working in online publishing in the UK, and was then responsible for award winning campaigns as Head of Search & Social for London-based digital agency Altogether (now merged with ad-agency WCRS). He moved to media agency Mindshare in 2009, originally as the first Head of Social in their worldwide office in London, and then to the Dublin office as the Head of Digital at Mindshare Ireland.
Ciarán is a regular speaker at events around the world, and has contributed to the likes of AdNews, B&T, econsultancy & AdAge.com.

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DavidJLenehan

Interesting article. In general product life cycles are getting shorter whilst the rate of innovation is increasing. Companies like Flikr have a limited product offering that isn’t difficult to duplicate. I feel the same is true for Instagram. Google already offer filters and sharing options for photos in Google +. Spotify haven’t really embraced social and might be left behind. The lack of Facebook integration and social play list generation/recommendations is very strange. For me this is the major problem with Spofity. It will be interesting to see if Apple offers that functionality in itunes when iOS6 is released.

http://ciarannorris.co.uk Ciaran

You’re absolutely right about the shelf-life. In many ways, the thing that seems to keep products alive, is the mass of their users, and their willingness, or lack of, to move. One of the few things keeping me on flickr, though barely using it, is the fact that I’ll need to download all my photos.

Mass Dosage

CBS isn’t a record label, they sold off that side of their business years ago. Do your homework first.

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